Cross-border Ecommerce - The Paypers

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Main card schemes and alternative payment methods in Russian Federation

Read below about payment methods and how to increase conversion by offering the most convenient online payment methods when selling goods online in Russia

Find out more about online payment methods in Russia and how to increase conversion here.
Domestic and Preferred Card Schemes
• MasterCard has the marginally greater share of the bank card market in Russia, with 53.1% share.
Alternative Payment Methods
• Cash on Delivery: Although electronic payments are quickly developing in Russia, cash remains, by far, the most popular means of payment in both offline and online retail. Cash still accounted for approximately 90% of payment volume in 2012 according to the Russian Central Bank. In 2016, cash will still account for 87% of Russian payments, according to Euromonitor International. In the field of ecommerce, cash still dominates as far as physical goods are concerned in a proportion that varies from 70% to virtually 100% of purchases.
• E-money: (e-wallets) are mostly local payment methods provided by domestic operators such as Yandex Money, Qiwi (in partnership with Visa) and Web Money. Other domestic e-wallets occupy a small or a negligible share of the market while PayPal, which was made available for domestic transactions only in September 2013, still has to conquer the market. e-Wallets can be used to pay for purchases online and loading of an e-Wallet can be done through various channels such as top-up through credit card, cash, bank transfer, ATM or through cash-in kiosks.
• Internet Banking: has appeared only recently in Russia and is already established as a rather popular online payment method. However, as is the case with payments via cash-in kiosks and mobile payment platforms, the overwhelming part of these payments is to settle mobile phone, ISP or utility bills, or other services. Just a very small fraction of online purchases of goods or services (probably less than 1% as far as physical goods are concerned) is made via online bank transfers.
Preferred Online Payment Methods
• Cash-on-Delivery is the main payment method in Russia. Credit/debit cards are mistrusted but used more in the big cities.
Read an in-depth overview (including sources) of card schemes, alternative payment methods, online payment methods in Russia and how to increase conversion by using the payment methods in the downloadable country report.